India Rules Out 'Hot Pursuit' in Kashmir for Now
dailynews.yahoo.com
Friday October 19 3:20 AM ET
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said on Friday it had no plans at present to cross into Pakistan-held territory in ``hot pursuit'' of Islamic guerrillas fighting its rule in Kashmir (news - web sites).
However, Home (Interior) Minister Lal Krishna Advani told a news conference that Indian security forces would continue to take tough action against militants in the volatile region.
``The pro-active policy will continue which means we will not be looking for terrorists to strike first...we will certainly go all out for them,'' he said.
In disputed Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani troops once again exchanged fire across a military cease-fire line dividing them, but officials said the gunfire was routine.
Firing broke out on Monday and intensified on Tuesday despite a visit to south Asia by Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), and has continued sporadically since.
After a Pakistan-based militant group launched a suicide attack on the legislature in Indian Kashmir on October 1, killing at least 38 people, some Indian officials advocated attacks on guerrilla bases in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
But Advani ruled that out for the moment.
``...in international law it is legitimate that if anyone attacks you, you have the right to hot pursuit,'' he said. ``But we have avoided that until now and at the present point of time we do not propose to do it.''
Advani said that in the past few months Indian security forces in the state of Jammu and Kashmir had been remarkably successful in identifying, locating and eliminating militants.
He said this had led to ``a keenness to infiltrate more people into the state'' and subsequently exchanges of firing across the military Line of Control which divides the nuclear rivals in the Himalayan region.
SLAMS PAKISTAN
New Delhi has long accused Islamabad of fomenting the revolt against Indian rule in Kashmir by arming and pushing Islamic militants across the international border and the cease-fire line, or Line of Control.
It says Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in particular, promotes Islamic militant groups.
Pakistan denies the charge and says that it provides only moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people's struggle for self-determination.
Advani said it was disingenuous for Pakistan to be part of the global coalition against terrorism -- which is now targeting the al Qaeda network and Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s Taliban -- because it was promoting terrorism itself.
``There is ample intelligence and analytical evidence to show that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which has provided a safe haven to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and others of the al Qaeda network on its soil, was the creation of the ISI of Pakistan,'' Advani said.
``And the very same ISI has also been the planner, instigator and supporter of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of India.''
He said the United States and other nations in the international coalition should ensure that ``those who are part of the war against terrorism are themselves not guilty of providing a safe haven to terrorists, to hijackers and to organizers of terrorist camps.''
A local news service reported that Kashmir's police chief had appealed to guerrillas to shun violence and avoid further bloodshed in the Himalayan region.
``We'll embrace militants if they shun violence,'' Ashok Kumar Suri, director general of police, told Current News Service.
``I appeal to militants to shun violence and join the way of peace so that there is no more bloodshed in this beautiful blood-soaked valley,'' Suri said.
SMALL ARMS FIRE
Officials said troops locked in eyeball-to-eyeball conflict at several points along the control line opened small arms fire on Friday at the Hiranagar, Samba, Ramgarh and Akhnoor sectors.
``Nothing alarming, it is very routine firing,'' an official of the Indian army's 16 corps, responsible for a large stretch of the border, told Reuters.
The attack on the state legislature was the most dramatic in Kashmir since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites) suspected to have been ordered by Saudi militant Osama bin Laden, now in hiding in Afghanistan. |
